Professional Practise
Interview
This video uploaded on YouTube shows me being interviewed for a position at Level Up Games.
In the interview, I was asked a variety of questions, including how well I understood the games development industry; what my personal career goals were within the sector; why I was interested in this particular job role; and before the interview we talked about an 8-week or 1-year development plan with measurable goals.
Historic Development of the Gaming Industry
The evolution of professional game developers has been significant since the inception of video games in the 1970s. Initially, game developers were often individual programmers or small teams that worked on game development as a hobby or side project. However, as the video game industry grew and became more mainstream, the demand for professional game developers increased.
In the 1980s and 1990s, game development companies started to emerge, and professional game developers began to work in teams to create video games. These teams typically consisted of programmers, artists, designers, and producers, each with their own specialized skills.
As the video game industry continued to grow, game development became more complex, and the roles of professional game developers became more specialized. Game developers began to focus on specific areas such as game design, programming, art, sound design, and quality assurance.
The growth of mobile gaming and indie game creation in the 2000s and 2010s lead to an even greater diversification of job roles within the game development industry. As the needs of the industry changed, new positions such as game analytics, user experience design, and community administration emerged.
Professional game developers today take on a wide range of responsibilities and work on several platforms, such as PC, console, mobile, and virtual reality. Games nowadays are graphically stunning and more life-like than ever before thanks to cutting-edge technology and software tools.
The software itself has changed a lot over the last decade as years ago the game engines we see today were not around and developers had to create raw code to develop games from scratch. What's great is that you can go online and access these packages for not a lot of money (soften free or free trials) so there are opportunities for self-learning, developing your skillset over time and begin to create your own games using software packages like Maya, Unreal and Unity. Having the ability to use apps like YouTube where everyone literally wants to share and teach people everything, it's much easier now to learn yourself, promote yourself and develop the skills you need in your chosen field. I find YouTube the most useful and have used it a lot during my college course particularly to increase my knowledge and skills around Maya and Unreal Engine.
If I think about the Games Design course I am on today, and that it's a pathway to a University Degree, these types of courses were not likely to have even been around 10 years ago, which in itself shows me how much the industry has changed.
So in summary, the industry continues to grow, games are becoming more like real life each year, technology is advancing in both software and hardware, and professional game developers are at the front of this fast-growing industry.
Evolution of Professional Games Developers
In this part, I will talk about the evolution of the games development industry and how technology is portrayed through a developer. The developer I chose to talk about is Sam Houser and the company Rockstar Games that he co-owns with his brother Dan Houser.
Rockstar Games was founded in 1998 and quickly gained a reputation for pushing the boundaries of video game development. Their games were known for their immersive worlds, great characters, and cinematic storytelling. One of their most popular franchises, Grand Theft Auto, has sold over 300 million copies worldwide and is considered one of the most successful video game franchises of all time.
Throughout its history, Rockstar Games has consistently leveraged new technologies to improve its games. For example, Grand Theft Auto III, released in 2001, was one of the first open-world games to use 3D graphics, allowing for more immersive gameplay. Similarly, Red Dead Redemption, released in 2010, was one of the first games to use motion capture technology to capture realistic facial expressions and body movements.
Sam Houser is known for his attention to detail and his focus on storytelling. He has often mentioned cinema as a major influence on his work, and this is evident in the cinematic quality of Rockstar's games.
Houser's approach to game development is also reflected in the company's commitment to creating immersive and believable worlds. For example, Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2013, featured a massive open world with a detailed city and surrounding countryside and is known as one of the most amazing and realistic-looking games out there, with almost every scene looking near to real life.
Overall, Rockstar Games and Sam Houser's contributions to the game development industry demonstrate the importance of leveraging new technologies and pushing creative boundaries to create engaging and immersive game experiences. By constantly innovating and exploring new ways to tell stories and create worlds, Rockstar Games has remained a leading force in the industry, inspiring and influencing other game developers along the way.
Rockstar Games develop with the same engine that the studio has used ever since Demon Souls and slowly upgraded the engine over time. The studio also took advantage of using many different assets/animations from previous games and learned to use resources as efficiently as possible.
As Dan and Sam put it in their interviews (link in below references) they always wanted to bite off more than they could chew and if you don't you will do what you did last time, so being ambitious was important to the ongoing success of GTA. Right from the start they wanted to make the biggest world, have the most characters, the most innovative multiplayer, and they give a lot of freedom to their developers who really believe in the overall project.
Personal Goals
In the future, my main personal goal is to become a level designer and hopefully create many great games, along with my own. To do this I will have to keep learning and working hard to make a name for myself.
In line with my career plan, I will set goals that I feel are achievable and not compare myself too much to others.
Here are some of the goals I will work towards:
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Develop Strong Technical Skills: Game development requires a deep understanding of game engines and software development tools.
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Build a Portfolio: A strong portfolio can help me stand out in the competitive game development industry. I can start to look at building a small portfolio fo games and projects to demonstrate my ability.
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Game Design Theory: Make it a goal to continue growing my knowledge of game design theory and apply it to my game development projects.
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Collaboration: Continue to work in teams or collaborate with others on game projects. This will help build my confidence, learn from others, and improve my game development skills.
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Industry Trends: Stay up to date on Industry trends to ensure I'm using and learning the latest software and hardware in the industry.
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Interviewing - With a strong portfolio I still need to be able to hold a good interview and is something I need to improve on, learn more about what to expect (as I have been doing during this course) and grow my confidence in these situations. My CV is also very important to capture all the right skills that the industry is looking for and ensure I capture my strengths.
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Creativity - I will need to look to my creativity and artistic abilities to develop innovative features, characters and obstacles. This skill can help me produce engaging challenges for the users to encounter throughout the level and immersive experiences that players can enjoy.
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Storytelling - As a level designer, my content would contribute to the storyline of the game. Effective storytelling can also help capture users' attention and ensure that they find the level challenging, engaging and suspenseful.
Level Design And Its Main Requirements
Level designers understand what makes good gameplay. They design the game – but only a portion of it is normally referred to as a ‘level’. They take the specification defined by the gameplay designer and get into the detail - the actions, events, objects, and environment. They also design the characters and the ways they behave.
The level designer first sketches ideas on paper or using 2D drawing software. They imagine the playing experience, putting themselves in the position of the player, mapping out all the possibilities. They need to think about the logic and flow of events and actions, the conditions that need to be met for certain things to happen and the challenges the player will encounter.
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Able to use industry-standard game engines or well-known game engines like Unreal Engine and use the level editing tools provided by the engines, such as producing and working with 3D assets, implementing gameplay mechanics, and setting up interactions in the game world.
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Use level design tools that allow you to create and modify game levels including terrain sculpting, object placement, lighting, and scripting interactions.
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Develop or change 3D assets for game levels, so it's important to have a basic understanding of 3D modelling and texturing techniques. Knowing how to use programmes like Maya can be helpful and I have been continually learning and developing my skills in this.
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Have some knowledge of scripting or programming languages. I am aware I need to have more understanding and skills in this area, however, I would say what's good about Unreal Engine is that it has a blueprints system that allows developers to create anything without programming language knowledge, which just makes it easier to understand.
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For game levels, I would need to develop or change 3D assets, so it's important to have a basic understanding of 3D modelling and texturing techniques which I have and have good experience with programmes like Maya.
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Knowing how to create engaging gameplay and level layouts that provide a great player experience is really important for this job. Gameplay has many complex mechanics and it's the level designer's job to have a good understanding of all game type mechanics and how to adapt these to players behaviour.
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Knowledge of testing to find gameplay faults and glitches in game levels.
Other Roles in the Creative Media Production Industry
Advertisement - 3D modeling is really good for creating ads as well because it allows the company to save the resources or in some cases, they might even be making an animation. Many ads are made digitally because it's easier, quicker, and cheaper to make. Many advertisement companies also use animation in their videos and modeling is one of the key aspects of this.
Movies - Many movie makers start to use the same software and tricks as game designers. If I ever went into movie making, my skills would be very useful in many different ways, like making assets, levels, characters or even designing weapons or clothes that actors would use. Unreal Engine was used during the production of HBO’s “Westworld” and Disney’s “The Mandalorian” to visualize special effects in real time.
The skills I am developing in Game Engines, 3D Modelling, Mechanics and Level design are all cross functional skills that can be very useful since both of those are being used by many movie companies at the moment.
Games Comparison
"L.A. Noire," (2011) developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games, pushed the boundaries of gameplay with the use of facial animation and some investigation mechanics. L.A. Noire's use of cutting-edge facial capture technology to create characters' realistic and complex facial expressions was one of its standout features. This allowed players to read the characters' emotions and figure out their reliability during interviews and interrogations. There had never been a gameplay element like this in any other game before.
The focus on detective work and crime-solving also set it apart from many other games of the time.
The gameplay was slower than other well-known action games as players had to pay close attention to details in order to solve crimes. The repetitiveness of some of the investigations and the small open-world setting were some of the gameplay mechanics that the game did face criticism for.
Overall, L.A. Noire did introduce some cutting-edge mechanics that were new and helped to expand into new areas for video games.
When comparing L.A. Noire to much new newer released games, such as "Deathloop" (2021) developed by Arkane Studios, this offers more advanced gameplay mechanics, particularly in terms of player choice and the ability to experiment with different approaches to completing objectives. It's a first-person shooter that incorporates time-looping mechanics, allowing players to experiment with different strategies and outcomes. The game also features a dialogue system that allows players to learn more about the game's characters and lore.
Deathloop offers more advanced gameplay mechanics when compared to L.A. Noire, particularly in terms of player choice and the ability to experiment with different approaches to completing objectives.
Career Plan
My goal is to become a Games Developer. Out of all the roles I have learnt about, becoming a Level Designer is what excites me the most in the Gaming Industry and is what I want to focus on.
To help me pursue this career in Games Development, I need to have a career plan documented to support my goals with what I need to learn to develop my skillset in order to ensure I am doing everything possible to get me there.
Professional development is common in all industries and is to ensure you develop the right skills and continue to develop yourself which is critical in the gaming industry where tech and software are constantly evolving.
The are many opportunities for professionals and those starting out to learn online and improve their skills. It's also really important to start networking as much as possible. Getting your name out there, connecting with people in the industry, and having a great portfolio are all very important to support my aim to land a junior role.
Here are some examples:
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YouTube or other Social Media - Great for finding tutorials, developing technical skills
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Game Jams - Good for creating simple games in a given time period
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Using free Apps - like Blender, Unreal Engine
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LinkedIn - Grow my profile, follow like-minded people, connect with industry experts, follow gaming publishers and software companies, connect with industry recruiters
In order to support my personal goals I will be working on my personal and professional development to support my growth to become a level designer. Here is my rough plan:
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Continue to develop my tech skills - I and continuously growing my knowledge and skillset in the main software packages such as Maya and Unreal Engine. Programming languages is something I need to improve on and it could be that some of my tasks as a level designer may include this so having a basic understanding will benefit me. However I would say what's good about Unreal Engine is that it has a blueprints system that allows developers to create anything without programming language knowledge, so just makes it easier to understand.
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Portfolio - Build my Artstation portfolio plus a personal website which will be really important when I start to show my work to potential employers.
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Creativity - This is a different type of skill where you need to think creatively pulling experiences from different mediums, playing a whole range of different video games, reading books, stories, and watching films to inspire m imagination.
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Time Management - For this I want to ensure for each piece of work I always create a plan from the start and keep this as a reference to ensure I keep track of a project. I know it's very important to meet deadlines on a project, especially as a level designer my work may be dependent before others can start their work.
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Communication - In order to be able to communicate ideas in a level designer role I will need to continue developing this aspect so that my messaging is always consistent and clear to an audience. I may look to further my communication skills by enrolling in a community college writing course.
Looking at jobs online there do seem a lot of opportunities, however, I do not see so many junior games developer roles in particular, there seem to be no apprenticeship roles in this industry which is a bit disappointing. I'm not sure why that is. My other concern is not having a full degree and that may be a requirement to even get a junior role, so is something I will consider doing as a top-up to this HND course once it ends.
Having a strong portfolio is also critical in this industry and will start to focus on this during the year. If I have a strong portfolio and can show my skillset that way then perhaps having an HND and not a degree may not be a problem. Whilst I will focus on a specialism, I will continue to build my skillset all round so can adapt to different situations, roles and requirements for different jobs in the industry.
Research Sources
https://www.en.wikipedia.org. History of Video Games. [Online]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games [Accessed 22 Mar 2023].
https://8bitplay.com. How to land a job as a junior game developer without prior work gamedev experience?. [Online] Available at: https://8bitplay.com/blog/junior-game-development-job-how-to-get-in-guide
https://uk.indeed.com. Junior Game Development Job Search. [Online] Available at: https://uk.indeed.com/jobs?q=game+development+junior&l=&vjk=82b3bbc05ec98911&advn=3789337681565477
https://en.wikipedia.org. Dan & Sam Houser Rockstar Games. [Online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houser
https://www.youtube.com. The History of Rockstar Games [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODGTWRrGVNU
https://www.indeed.com. How To Become a Video Game Level Designer. [Online] Available at: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/how-to-become-video-game-level-designer
https://www.screenskills.com. Games Level Designer. [Online] Available at: https://www.screenskills.com/job profiles/browse/games/design/level-designer/
https://www.gameinformer.com. L.A. Noire Everything You Need To Know About L.A. Noire. [Online] Available at: https://www.gameinformer.com/games/la_noire/b/ps3/archive/2011/05/12/everything-you-need-to-know-about-l-a-noire.aspx
https://www.youtube.com. Deathloop Developer Breaks Down its Design. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ra-jkrurR4&t=133s